The Summoned King by David Neuendorf

Indiana high school senior James Madison Young can best be described as a Renaissance man: intelligent, of good character, and possessed by insatiable curiosity about everything from Krav Maga to robotics. One evening, he falls asleep while studying at the library. He wakes to find himself in another world, filled with magic, danger and romance. He has been summoned by court wizard Maynard to be the king of Kalymbria. Forced into marriage with the beautiful and magically powerful yet untrained Julia Roper for his queen, he must restore the lapsed Constitution in the face of opposition from a hostile Council of Advisors, and defend his new country from the evil machinations of the wizard Ruinga and her allied kingdom of Venicka. Rediscovering the lost art of enchantment may provide him with a powerful edge in his quest, if he can survive the assassins and conspiracies arrayed against him.

I was contacted via the author and received a copy in exchange for an unbiased, honest review.

The idea behind this book is one that is easy to relate to, a nerdy high school senior – James “Jim” Madison falls asleep whilst at the library and finds himself transported to a different world or rather summoned by a magician. Jim is forced to take up the role as King and has it sprung on him that as King he must marry as it is law and from there Jim, as King, decides to take his role seriously and make progressive changes to his society.

I don’t enjoy giving low ratings but here are the reasons why it didn’t work for me.

While the premise of the story is an interesting, fun one, it was unbelievable the moment Jim was transported to a different world. Jim wasn’t taken aback, he immediately fell into the role which offered no development to him. Even if he believed it to be a dream [which it didn’t seem that way, I’ll come back to that in a moment,] he seemed to accept everything rather easily.

My main issue is the lack of development in character, as well as the world. It’s largely a dialogue book, which detracts from delving into this world feet first and experiencing first hand. While there are a goodly amount of politics, it doesn’t save the characters from being flat and I will blame that on the lack of storytelling behind the characters. They were all interchangeable. That being said since there was very little character development and back stories to them we never truly get to understand what is going on with each character and how all of the events affected them.

I guess in the end I felt like this book was only half written and that it was still in need of some finishing touches. It has a very interesting storyline but I feel like most of it could and should be embellished on.